Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“I don’t think they have.” Cassius shook his head.
This was big. The biggest break we’d gotten in our case for the missing dagger. And unfortunately, it had been laid directly at the feet of Blake’s best friend. This was likely a lot to process, but we didn’t have much time. “Do you know how to contact him?” I asked. “Where we can find him?”
Cassius remained quiet. He shut his eyes, wincing as if he were in physical pain. Blake reached over and rubbed his friend’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, Cass. We can figure this out together,” Blake reassured him.
“I can ask my dad,” he finally answered. “He might know where it is we can find him. Maybe he’s kept tabs on his brother.”
“He wasn’t in the room during the attack, was he?” Caleb asked. He was a detective with an agency called Stonewall Investigations, so his expertise was welcome right now. Maybe he should have been the one to take the helm on this. I was clearly proving to be more and more out of my league. If I hadn’t fought off that Dragonsbane, Blake could have been seriously injured or worse, all while we lost an innocent life and weren’t even able to extract a location from the Time Turners.
All my insecurities rose to the surface of my psyche. Childhood memories of seeing my siblings master their powers early while I could barely create a handful of sand, much less turn back time. My mother would spend hours with me, day after day, trying to teach me how to work my magic. She was a golden dragon just like me, but her powers seemed like an infinite well stored inside her, while mine felt like a shallow puddle slowly drying up in the hot summer heat. If it wasn’t for her, that puddle may have evaporated completely. She pushed me to grow, to learn, to believe in myself.
The belief was slowly waning, flickering like a candle underneath a cold draft.
“No,” Cass answered Caleb’s question. “I don’t think so, at least. He said he had left right before the attack happened. He was rushed somewhere safe.”
Caleb cocked his head. He pursed his lips. “But how did they know to rush him to safety?”
“It was a large attack—they probably got some kind of word it would be happening,” Cassius said. I noticed there was a bristle in his tone. The stress of this must have been getting to him.
A question popped into my head. For a second, I wasn’t going to ask it, the doubt clamping an invisible hand around my mouth. But I spoke anyway. “Does your uncle have any strong relationships with other people in your family?”
With a deep breath, Cassius said, “Yes. I have a cousin, his only daughter. I think they still talk. I keep in touch with her, but we aren’t close. And her mom passed away around the same time mine did. That made it difficult for us; we were just constant reminders of what we lost to each other.”
“Wow, so both your father and his brother lost their wives?” Dawn said. “I’m sorry. That must have been a very difficult time.”
“It was. And it’s what pulled my father and uncle apart too. They were never really close, but things got really bad. They started to fight a lot. It got fucked. My dad said to me one day that he’s never speaking to Simon again, and after that, I didn’t see him.”
“Are you comfortable with talking to your dad about this?” Blake asked. He clearly cared about his friend’s mental health, which must have been taking a beating through this.
“Yeah, yeah. I just need a minute.” Cassius stood, the heavy chair sliding back across the polished hardwood floor. “Is it alright if I go for a walk?”
“Of course,” Damien answered.
“We’ll be here,” Dawn said.
Blake reached over and squeezed his friend’s elbow. “It’s going to be fine. Okay?”
“I know. I just need some fresh air. Maybe I’ll call my dad.”
“Let us know how that goes,” I said. Cassius left the dining room. Bambi hopped off a windowsill and sauntered behind him, likely thinking she could get some lap sits in. She had a habit of following whoever was feeling the most stressed or anxious, as if she knew that a few head scratches and a heavy stream of purrs could cure anyone’s problems.
“Poor guy,” Warrick said. He picked up a half-eaten crust and took a bite.
“On the flip side, at least we have a solid lead,” Claire offered. “Maybe this can be how we figure out where the dagger is. We just need to keep you out of their hands in the meantime.” Her light eyes leapt to mine.
“How would that work anyway? They just need me to wield the dagger?” I asked.
Claire shrugged. “I know as much about it as you do. I’ll try and do some more research on it, but it looks like not much is known about the starlight dagger. It was found decades ago and has been held by the government ever since under their Crucial Artifacts Program.”